Barry’s story
My traumatic experiences in the womb, at birth and in early childhood provided the painful woundings (mental, emotional, physical and sexual abuse) that would set up the soul's journey in this lifetime. All this would cause me to seek later in my life and to find that the path to the divine Self and God was to face and embrace the most difficult traumas and the darkest recesses of the subconscious.
I renounced religion, had a rather "normal" adolescence and young adult life, and somehow managed to emerge integrated and societally conditioned enough to pursue the American Dream. I became a corporate banker in Los Angeles. But as my career star rose, my misgivings grew. I saw what happened to those above me on the career ladder -- they became greedy and ruthless, and would do anything to succeed. As I contemplated my life, my own success began to feel empty and meaningless.
Then, my world fell apart. After my wife went off with another man, I left banking to head a start-up company, which failed. Now I was deeply in debt, and my smoking and drinking were spiraling out of control. All I could do was pray for help from a God I wasn’t even sure existed. I began the long journey of facing and embracing all the wounded parts of myself from childhood and past lives. This process would be central to my spiritual journey for the remainder of my spiritual journey, even to this day.
A short time later, I began to feel an energy and presence in the center of my chest, just above my heart. At first I wondered if I was having heart problems, on top of everything else. But I soon realized this presence was intelligent and attempting to guide me.
This was the moment that changed my life. I embraced this stirring as my savior and began to listen for its guidance. I meditated on the inner presence, wanting only to get closer to it. And as I did, I began to feel a happiness and peace I had never known.
The presence told me exactly what to do to change my life, and its guidance was impeccable. As my communion with the inner presence in my chest deepened, my life became a magical adventure that led me far beyond the corporate world into a spiritual journey that spanned the globe.
Then, one day, the space in the center of my chest began to expand exponentially, and waves of energy and ecstasy rushed up my spine and out the top of my head. A luminous, golden divine presence exploded out of the soul space above my heart and expanded into infinity. I realized that the God I was looking for was within, and omnipresent as who I really was. I had found what I had long sought in all the attempts to find fulfillment in the outer world, even through the gurus and divine beings I had followed. I felt done with seeking, complete in who I was.
I realized that almost everyone else was still in the great existential pain that I had known just a short time ago. All I wanted to do was be of assistance in any way I could. Again, the Divine answered my prayer. Although childhood experiences had turned me away from anything Christian, the Universal Christ presence and Christ Jesus came into my life. I began to be used as a conduit for the blessing-grace of the Christ to heal, uplift and awaken those who were drawn into my presence. I was brought into re-union with my soul complement, Karen, and we began our service of facilitating and catalyzing others to realize their true, eternal Self.
Karen’s Story
With a family history of alcoholism on one side and suicide on the other, I had plenty of emotional issues to work through in this lifetime. Add in crippling perfectionism and self-condemnation, and my plate was overflowing.
I grew up and tried to fit into the “normal” world, but I never belonged there. After I ended my short teaching career, my life segued into a freeform spiritual quest. Somehow, I hoped to find a path through the emotional turmoil that still plagued me.
Then, when I was 28, my life fell apart. My wonderful bookstore job and my relationship ended simultaneously. Worst of all, my mother committed suicide. The pain was so overwhelming that it was all I could do to make it through each day. I often wondered, Why is my life so filled with suffering?
Through it all, one thought replayed in my mind: “I can’t be going through all of this for no reason. The only way this much pain makes sense is if it will someday enable me to understand and help others through their challenges.”
It would be many years before that came about -- years filled with intense inner work, a three-year chakra clearing process, and many upheavals, within and without.
At last, the two souls named Barry and Karen met again in this life. During the early days of our connection, Barry did many sessions with me to get to the roots of my emotional pain. The trail led through past lives that included being imprisoned, tortured, and killed for expressing my soul essence and speaking my truth. I felt and released the pain of a thousand lifetimes and wondered if I would ever get to the bottom of it all.
Gradually, my emotions stabilized, and I stepped into facilitating sessions alongside Barry, and then on my own. In my presence, others dove into their pain and found their way through it to a new place of freedom, just as I had.
My own journey of liberation continued, and as I faced my core evolutionary dilemmas, I was blessed with profound mystical experiences of resurrection and redemption. Although I had long ago rejected Christianity, the great blessing of the Firmament of the Christ descended over me during one potent session. I discovered that I am here to hold a sacred space of possibility as the Garden of the Resurrection for others facing their deepest challenges.
Today, I often call upon the resurrecting power of the Christ. My deepest truth is that This, too, can be resurrected. Countless experiences have proven that the darkest passageways can carry us into the greatest light, when we meet them from the soul, not the mind, and allow the Divine to show us the Way.
To learn more about the experiences that have prepared us to serve in the collective awakening, please refer to our books. In each of the three volumes of the Birthing the Luminous Self Trilogy, we share potent evolutionary passages in our lives that, through divine grace, brought us into greater freedom and illumination. We also describe how we were brought into being able to facilitate conscious communion with the soul, as well as share the Transmissions of Grace. The third volume of the trilogy includes our many direct experiences of the realm of the Christ, which overlights our work.
